Classroom Management – Helping Teachers Grow

Today I took my students to the computer lab for a little poetry work.  I’d planned accordingly and had a good list of websites ready to go.  Even still, I knew that time spent in the computer lab can be some of the most challenging for a teacher.  I’ve had many days when I left the lab totally exhausted.  Today I was not going to suffer that same fate.

Thanks to a big technology grant at our school, I get to use a lap top, document camera, digital projector, and an interactive whiteboard.  Using all these goodies, I was able to show my students exactly what we’d be doing once we got to the lab.  I told them ahead of time that I’d cover this all again once we got to the lab, but that I wanted them to see where we were going while I had everyone’s attention.

Step by step, I clicked on each program, showed them where we were going to click to find our information, and walked them through the entire lesson that would take place a little later once in the lab.  This process took about five minutes.  Once finished, I asked for questions and clarified any misunderstandings.  I then reminded them of my typical classroom behavior expectations as well as my specific expectations for the computer lab in addition to reminding them of the consequence for not meeting these expectations.

That done, we marched off to the lab and proceeded to have a great time!  The students were remarkably on task.  There were very few students who didn’t know what we were doing or how we were doing it.  Students were good at helping each other out when one saw that another was struggling.

And at the end of the day, I felt good.  It seemed like the students produced some nice poetry (Mother’s Day cards!).  And I wasn’t nearly as stressed or tired as I have been after a day spent in the computer lab.

Ah, the joy of a little pre-emptive class management…